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Technical Community Organizations

ARIN works in close coordination with other RIRs, national and international community organizations, and local and national governments. These groups are operated by and for the Internet user community. ARIN enjoys a comprehensive relationship with each of these bodies and participates in their meetings throughout the year. To provide a comprehensive look at ARIN's participation in Internet Governance, we have created a special section dedicated to these activities and organizations. ARIN also work with Technical organizations like NANOG and the IETF to support the continuing development of the Internet.

IETF

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.

The technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups, which are organized by topic into several areas (e.g., routing, transport, security, etc.). Much of the work is handled via IETF mailing lists. The IETF holds meetings three times per year.

The IETF working groups are grouped into areas, and managed by Area Directors, or ADs. The ADs are members of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Providing architectural oversight is the Internet Architecture Board, (IAB). The IAB also adjudicates appeals when someone complains that the IESG has failed. The IAB and IESG are chartered by the Internet Society (ISOC) for these purposes. The General Area Director also serves as the chair of the IESG and of the IETF, and is an ex-officio member of the IAB.

NANOG

The North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) provides a forum for the exchange of technical information and promotes discussion of implementation issues that require community cooperation. Coordination among network service providers helps ensure the stability of overall service to network users.

NANOG is a 501(c)3 non-profit membership organization, funded from conference registration fees, memberships and donations from vendors. Its members are typically drawn from the core engineering and product staffs of the major North American carriers, content providers, hosting and cloud companies, multi-tenant data centers, and interconnection service providers. NANOG is governed by the NANOG Board of Directors, elected by the membership, every two years.

NANOG evolved from the NSFNET "regional-techs" meetings, where technical staff from the regional networks met to discuss operational issues of common concern with the Merit engineering staff. At the February 1994 regional techs meeting in San Diego, the group revised its charter to include a broader base of network service providers, and subsequently adopted NANOG as its new name.

Since 2002, ARIN has held its fourth quarter Public Policy and Members Meeting back-to-back with the NANOG meeting in order to gain additional network operator input into the public policy discussions on IP address issues. Since 2003, NANOG meeting attendees have had the opportunity to vote in the election for an NRO NC representative from the ARIN region.

CaribNOG

The Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) is a community of Network Operators dedicated to exchanging technical information and experiences related to the management of IP networks in the Caribbean region. CaribNOG collaborates with the regional and international organizations and stakeholders to facilitate capacity building and professional networking activities including technical workshops, seminars, research-papers and meetings.

CaribNOG Regional Meetings are held twice a year, generally in April and October, and participation is open to network operators, IT practitioners, students, regulators, entrepreneurs, government representatives and other individuals or institutions interested in the advancement of the Internet in the Caribbean.

ARIN has been a CaribNOG supporter since the organizations inception in 2010, and provides speakers for events and other support as needed.

Opportunities for Participation in the Technical and Internet Number Resource Policy Communities